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Interdisziplinäres Zentrum für Pietismusforschung
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postal address:
Interdisziplinäres Zentrum für Pietismusforschung
06110 Halle
IZP projects
Johann Franz Budde (1667-1729) in context
Researcher: Nora Blume
This dissertation project examines theological and philosophical debates around 1700 in Central Germany. It focuses on the professor of philosophy and theology Johann Franz Budde (1667-1729) and his writings, inspired by the Christian Kabbalah, which referred to European contexts and sparked local and supra-regional controversies. This aspect has so far been neglected in research on Budde, which seems to call into question the assessment of Budde as a scholar already close to "the Enlightenment." Rather, this fact raises the question of what was and is generally understood by "the Enlightenment".
The research project therefore explores two perspectives:
On the one hand, it examines the historicization frameworks within which Budde has been located so far and how these frameworks emerged. Thus, the research project addresses the emergence of historiographical categories in a genealogical manner.
On the other hand, the project serves to consistently historicize the contexts of Budde's utilization of Theologumena, which around 1700 were pejoratively described as Hermetic-Platonic. The study aims to visualize the philosophical and theological debates associated with these statements, which fluctuated between assertions and claims of orthodoxy, discourses on the Orient and tolerance, accusations of atheism, and debates about Judaism.
The plurality of religious experience:
Christianity in Germany between revival and confessionalisation, 1790-1840
Researcher: Diethard Sawicki
The decades between the Napoleonic Wars and the Vormärz period, marked by social and political upheaval, were also a period of particular religious dynamics in Europe. New forms of experience-centered religiosity emerged, denominational boundaries were questioned, and natural philosophical, theosophical, and spiritualistic concepts were debated and exchanged between churches, culture, and the sciences.
Key terms used to describe this situation include "Late Pietism," "the age of revivalism," but also "romantic religiosity," and—with reference to the Roman Catholic Church—"ultramontanism." All of these terms emerged retrospectively and convey far-reaching narratives of church and denominational history, most of which were formulated in the second half of the 19th century.
In contrast to such retrospective attributions, the research project intends to describe the heterogeneous religious-historical situation of the decades around 1800 from the perspective of contemporary actors – using an approach that builds on concepts of historical anthropology: Where did people in the early 19th century see religious awakenings in their environment – critically or affirmatively?To whom was loyalty to the church or separatism attributed, and by which authorities? What forms of community did the actors of new religious movements seek (conventicles, charismatic-spiritualist communities, societies, lodges, free churches)? To what extent did contemporaries use new terms or reinterpret old ones to describe experiences of transcendence, such as "awakening," "mysticism," "premonition," or "religious feeling"? What criteria for the authenticity of claims to transcendence were discussed?
The project also aims to include theological and religious-philosophical concepts and actors that have not been examined in detail so far – among other things because of their “speculative-mystical-theosophical tendency” (F. W. Kantzenbach), often considered problematic from a church-historical perspective.